The Putting-Together Process (Blog #274)

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It’s Friday after Christmas, and I was just sitting at this laptop twelve hours ago. Since eight of those hours were spent sleeping, I officially have very little to say. I realize this isn’t a good way to advertise what’s going on here, sort of like a department store putting a sign in the window that says, “Come on in–nothing’s on sale.” Still, it’s honest. I mean, what happens before noon? In my world, rarely anything. But today I’m blogging even earlier than normal because I’m going out-of-town later to pick up my aunt, who’s been visiting her three grandchildren for the holidays. “I’m ready to come home,” she said.

With any luck, this will be done in less than an hour.

Last night I dreamed I was driving through one of my favorite areas of town, which was filled with new construction. There were two and three-story buildings, all in the process of being built, for blocks and blocks. My therapist says that buildings represent your physical body and your life, so I assume this dream represents all the mental, emotional, and physical changes I’ve made over the last few years, most of which have kicked into high gear since I started the blog. Since the dream didn’t involve just one house but rather an entire neighborhood, I take that to mean that I’m quite literally rebuilding my entire world.

Later in the dream a friend gave me a business card that was like a puzzle, several pieces that fit together like a game. Since I think puzzles are fun and challenging, I think this means that I need to reshape the way I look at business, which I usually associate with being overwhelming and “serious.” It’s like my subconscious is saying, “Lighten up, Marcus. It’s just another game.”

Anytime I start a project, I look forward to it being completed. If I redecorate a room, I love seeing it finished, everything in place. I can stare at it for hours. So I keep thinking about those buildings in the dream. I want them to be done. But currently my sister is working on the puzzle we recently started, and I’m reminding myself that the fun part is actually the building process, the putting-together process. That feeling of finished satisfaction that I love only comes after all the hard work has been put in. So I’m also reminding myself that this time in my life is vitally important because it’s when I’m laying my foundation and constructing a solid structure. Looking around my parents’ house, I don’t see a single two-by-four. They’ve all been covered up with sheetrock, paint and family photos. But I know they’re there, holding everything up.

You can’t build a house, much less a life, from the outside-in.

This reminds me that you can’t build a house, much less a life, from the outside-in. Rather, if you want something that’s going to last, you have to start on the inside and work your way out, no matter how long it takes and how difficult it is. In my experience, this is a long and boring process. And because you’re working on the parts that few people see or appreciate, it’s often a lonely process. So you’ve really got to believe in yourself and what you’re doing. Again, it comes down to integrity and making something solid of yourself, something that’s so well-built on the inside that it can handle any storm. This is challenging, of course–it’s meant to be challenging. But, like a puzzle, it’s also meant to be fun, something you have all the time in the world to work on and comes together one piece at a time.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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It's never a small thing to open your home or heart to another person.

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Walls Are Meant for Painting Over (Blog #220)

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Last night I slept in a twin-sized bed, the one I slept in from childhood until the summer I moved out of my parents’ house at the tender age of twenty-eight. My dad’s best friend growing up was a guy named Ronnie, and Ronnie’s dad, Roger, handmade the bed, which has a trundle, sometime before I started remembering things. Roger worked for a local furniture company during the day, and at night he’d craft his own furniture, which he said was his therapy. I guess he needed a lot of it (who doesn’t?), since Roger not only made my bed, but also made my entire bedroom suite, part of which I said goodbye to last year when I had the estate sale. What remains, however, is the bed, a nightstand, a dresser, a toy chest, and some other piece of furniture I can’t describe but that my sister spilled nail polish on when we were kids, so it needs refinishing.

Anyway, most of that furniture is crammed into the room I grew up in. I’ve been staying in a different room since I moved back home–my sister’s old room–but sometimes I go into my old room to search for things or practice yoga. The room itself is smaller than my sister’s, but it currently has more floor space. Twin beds, after all, don’t take up much room. Today I went in there to exercise, and I noticed a small chip in the brown paint, really no bigger than a sunflower seed. Beneath it were tiny flecks of baby blue and dark grey–baby blue from when we moved here when I was five, dark grey from when I was in high school and decided to remodel, replacing the cartoon train border with a Coca-Cola one.

I don’t usually think much about it, but sometimes when I’m in my old room, I’m swept away by nostalgia. The blinds are wide, aluminum, something I picked out at some point and matched with a retro fabric band that holds them together. Around the window is a set of adjustable shelves we had custom-made. Now they hold some of my dad’s collectables and a few family photos, one of me in a Boss t-shirt, trying to be all sexy, as if that’s possible when you’re thirteen. But I can still remember the way I alphabetized my CDs on those shelves, exactly where my collection of Tim Sandlin books went. Around the top of the room are other built-in shelves that once held my collection of Legos, Batman toys, and Coke bottles. Now those things have all been sold, and God knows where they ended up, other than my memory.

When I think about the trundle-bed, I remember Dad used to hide me in the trundle part whenever my friends would come over and play hide-and-seek. At bedtime he’d tuck me in real, real tight on both sides so that I couldn’t wiggle or squirm. Then he’d turn out the lights, and there I’d stay, all wrapped up until morning, since I hadn’t yet experienced the need to get up in the middle of the night to pee. But something about the pressure of the tightly tucked-in sheets, I guess, made me feel safe. Then again, I didn’t think much about safety back then or whether or not the world was a scary place to live. Not like I do now. I just assumed everything would be all right.

When I was a kid, the bed had a regular mattress. But when I was a teenager, Roger came over to the house and reinforced the sides in order to convert it into a waterbed. I can still see him placing the brackets. Anyway, it’s been that way ever since, although it usually stays unplugged, unheated, and unused unless my nephews are visiting. When I was in my mid-twenties, I wrote an essay about the bed. I’d have to dig it up, but my dad still jokes about it because I basically blamed my small bed for my not growing up sooner. After all, twin beds don’t offer a lot of room–for growing, stretching out, or spending the night with someone else. I guess Dad thinks things would have been different, life would have been better for me, if I’d gotten a bigger bed before I moved out in my late twenties. (Maybe he thinks I would have moved out sooner.) But today I told him, “Dad, I’m fine. I was being poetic.”

Getting far in life has absolutely nothing to do with where you’re physically standing.

Of course, I prefer a bigger bed. They are great for spreading out, certainly for hosting others. Not that I’ve done any hosting since moving back in with Mom and Dad, but I did pick the bed in my sister’s old room because it’s larger–king-size, I think. Plus it’s been easier to not be in my old room. I guess sometimes when I go in there, it does feel like I haven’t gotten very far in life. Like, here I am–thirty-seven, same fucking town, same fucking room. But then I look at the picture of that thirteen-year-old kid, I remember everything we’ve survived in the last twenty-four years, and I’m reminded that growth and getting far in life have absolutely nothing to do with where you’re physically standing.

The bed in my sister’s room is just all right. It used to belong to my aunt and her husband, so I’m guessing the mattress is at least as old as I am. Anyway, my back has been hurting since I moved back home, and I’ve simply been blaming it on the fact that I was in a car accident or that my back just hurts sometimes. But since my back didn’t hurt while I was in Colorado and New Mexico, I decided to warm up the waterbed to see if it would make a difference. And whereas I can’t say that my back has felt like a miracle today, I do think it’s been better.

More than anything else, crawling into bed last night truly felt like coming home again. My sister’s old room is on the corner of the house, and it’s always cold this time of year. But my old room is in the middle of the house–it’s smaller, warmer, cozier. Of course, the waterbed itself is warm, the sheets flannel and inviting. Crawling under the covers last night felt like slipping into the biggest hug. Pulling the comforter across me, I could feel the pressure, the okay kind that makes all the other pressures of life seem bearable. All it felt–familiar–as if I’d been there and done that ten thousand times before. Obviously, I had, and it’s no wonder I slept better than I have in maybe a year, even if my toes were a little crowded. Now part of me wants to hold on to that bed forever, as if it had the power to turn back the clock and make everything all right again. But another part of me knows it can’t do that–that’s my job. Beds, after all, are meant only for sleeping, just as walls are meant for painting over and boys are meant for growing up.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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if you're content with yourself and you're always with yourself, then what's the problem?

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Let’s Talk about Sex (Stores) (Blog #160)

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This afternoon I ate out for lunch before therapy and developed a two-hour crush on the host at the restaurant. Honestly, he wasn’t really my type–high-water pants, mustache, probably patchouli for deodorant. I mean, I didn’t get close enough to know for sure. But basically, he was a hippy–or hipster–I really don’t know the difference. Plus, it’s so hard these days to tell if someone is gay or not. Once when I was with my aunt at a department store, a hot young number offered to clean our glasses, and I could have sworn he was hitting on me. But short of someone sticking their hand down my pants, I never like to assume. He could have just been on commission.

Anyway, the host at the restaurant. I told my therapist about him and said, “Oh my god, I just realized he had a braided belt on,” and my therapist said, “Like a leather one–from the nineties?”

“Yes, how awful. How did I overlook that?”

“You were just horny,” she said.

Fair enough.

Of course, we talked about other things too, like people pleasing. My therapist said the problem with people pleasing is that it makes us externally focused. What will she say? What will they think? But she said we should ideally be internally focused, which simply means being authentic and true to our own values and morals rather than someone else’s. In short, we should be true to ourselves.

This evening I met my friend CJ out of town for dinner. We weren’t technically celebrating my birthday (which is next week), but she said we were, so woowho! I’m all for early and prolonged celebrations. As my friend Marla says, “You get one day a year all to yourself, you might as well make it count.” Anyway, after eating in Rogers, we headed toward Fayetteville to see a show at Theater Squared. Since we arrived early (a first for me), we decided to go for a walk along Dickson Street, and when we passed Condom Sense, CJ said, “Have you ever been in there?”

“Never,” I said.

Grabbing my arm, she said, “Let’s go!”

Well, right off the bat, the little lady behind the counter told me a sex joke, something to do with the penis jewelry around her neck that could point up or down. She kept playing with it like a see-saw. Well, I’ve been in a sex shop before, but I’m always a skosh uncomfortable. So I just glanced at all the dildos–don’t mind me–and the lady said, “There’s more in the back room!”

Oh, this back room?

Y’all, there was a penis cage. I sort of thought it was like a chastity belt, but honestly didn’t know what it was for. It just looked like a penis-shaped cage with a little lock on it, something you might put on your luggage to feel safe. You know, protect the family jewels. Well, I’m a curious person, so I asked the lady behind the counter, “What about the cock cage?” Then she came down from her perch behind the counter, not even joking, and said, “Which one?” Then she explained that a cock cage is a training device, almost like something you’d put on your kid’s bicycle. And then–and then–she started pointing her finger at me, and said, “You’re the slave. I’M THE MASTER. As long as this is on your cock, you can’t get an erection. You only get a hard-on when I SAY.”

I mean, I grew up in church. How do you respond to that? Uh–yes, ma’am? No, thank you?

Honestly, I was itching to get out of the store because the show was about to start, and I can only listen to a woman my mother’s age talk about erections for so long. But before CJ and I could get out the door, the lady started talking to us about lubes–water-based, oil-based, and silicone. Just imagine this short woman with long hair of indeterminate color talking with a smoker’s voice, pointing her finger at you kind of angrily, and saying, “I’ve been having sex since before anybody knew what sex was. Sure, water-based lubes are better than spit, but it’s nothing like this silicone.”

Dear god, make it stop.

I kept thinking she was going to say, “I used to walk ten miles uphill in the snow to have sex,” but instead she pumped some of the lube on my fingers and then CJ’s fingers. Well, what do you do? So we just stood there, rubbing our fingers together, rubbing our fingers together, as the lady kept talking. I thought, Lady, I’m gay. That’s enough about your vagina. Although, yes–I guess it is cute that you call it Fluffy. Much less threatening that way.

“Boy, CJ, look at the time. The show starts in ten minutes!”

“Okay, Marcus. Let’s go.”

Then the lady said, “Pardon the expression, but come again.”

You can’t make this up.

Okay, I didn’t mean for this blog to be about my trip to the sex shop. But really, how do you beat that? (No pun intended.) Seriously, CJ and I had a great time at the show, a musical called Fun Home. But even a production about a singing lesbian who grows up with a closeted father who works at a funeral (fun) home doesn’t really top a lube-hawking grandma with a sterling silver see-saw penis around her neck. But I suppose few things would.

Currently I’m at CJ’s, spending the night on her farm. I’m inside, but the air outside is the coolest it’s been all summer. The full moon is shining bright in the sky, like a spotlight announcing fall’s arrival. Earlier CJ and I went for a walk down her dirt road, and her three dogs and one of her cats followed along. When we got back, we pulled some chairs off her back porch and into the yard, sat under the moon, and traded stories. CJ said I should have hit on the hippy at the restaurant. “What would he have done?” she said.

Now CJ is in bed. The house is quiet, and the world is still. I can hear crickets outside the door, maybe a neighbor’s dog barking. Across the room there are several five-gallon buckets of dehydrated food. CJ said she bought them cheap from a friend who’s a “prepper,” apparently a person who stockpiles food, guns, and whatever for the end of the world. CJ plans to resale them, but considering each bucket contains 275 meals, if something drastic were to happen tonight, CJ and I should be fine for roughly a year and a half.

So don’t worry about us.

When CJ told me about “preppers,” I thought it was a sex thing, but–then again–it’s been that sort of day. Jokes aside, I thought, That’s so bizarre. Who lives like that? Honestly, it’s the same thing I thought when I saw some of the items in the sex store. I imagine some people reading this blog may find it odd, offensive, too–uh–personal. But it was my day, and, as my grandpa used to say, “It’s a big old world.” Ultimately, I’m glad I live in a time and place where I can talk to my therapist (or the internet) about a hot hippy host, where women who voted for JFK can sell condoms to college students, and where singing lesbians can take the stage. Personally, I don’t want to hoard dehydrated food or put a cage on my penis, but I’m thrilled to be in a world where other people can if they want to. So as soon as I hit publish, I’m going back out on the porch, looking at the moon, and getting some fresh, country air. I suppose that’s all any of us really want–to breathe deep, to breathe true to ourselves, whatever that means.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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You can’t change what happened, but you can change the story you tell yourself about it.

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Before I Knew How to Believe in Myself (Blog #136)

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When I started Westark College in 1999, I only had a vague idea about what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. Twenty years later, it’s just now beginning to come into focus. But at the time I was interested in public speaking. As it turns out, that’s not an actual major. Plus, if you want to speak in public, it helps to have something interesting to say, and–well–I was nineteen and mostly concerned about my hair. So I did the best I could for a major–mass communications–and then signed up for a public speaking class, as well as history, biology, and–almost as an afterthought–something called Publications Staff.

Although I didn’t know it until the first day of class, I’d unwittingly signed up to work on the college yearbook. Incidentally, this is not a good way to get laid. But looking back, it was perhaps one of the best decisions I ever made, if you could even rightly say that I made it. I mean, it just sort of happened.

For the next four years, the room where yearbook met was my home. Of the people I still talk to from college, all of them were on the yearbook staff. Because of yearbook I learned about layout and design–how to make anything from pictures on a wall to text on a page look appealing–which has come in handy more times than I can count. Because of yearbook I learned to take pictures, which later led to my working for a wedding photographer, which later led to my opening the dance studio in the photographer’s building. Because of yearbook I learned to write better and to edit, which later led to my work for a local magazine and obviously plays a huge part in what I’m doing right this very minute.

In short, yearbook changed my entire world.

At the center of the yearbook staff was Lori Norin, our adviser. Life is so funny. I can remember where I was sitting when I met her, and there weren’t any signs–any flashing lights or letters from angels saying, “This is an important moment,” but it was. Lori was the one who taught me everything I know about layout and design, the one who taught me about taking good photos, the one who taught me to write better and to edit. She was the one who made me fall in love with red ink pens.

I think after my first year on staff–maybe my second–Lori asked me to be the yearbook editor. So for the next two or three years, that’s what I was. Each semester the staff would change a little, but it was mostly the same people. We’d come in, stay late, and work in a windowless room under fluorescent lights and the wisdom of a sign on the wall that said, “You’re never done, you’re just out of time.” That was the room where I got the nickname “Pants” because I used to wear vintage plaid pants on the regular. That was the room where I coined the phrase “another opportunity to excel,” which I’d say with sarcasm every time a hard drive would crash or Lori would mark up my work with red ink and say I needed to start over.

Living with your parents? Another opportunity to excel.

I think it’s fair to say that Lori and I became friends. Her office was just across the hall from the yearbook room, and I’d run back and forth with questions, edits. I’d work on the spare computer in her office, lean over her desk with page desgins filled with Lorem ipsum dolor sit, which doesn’t mean anything but is used to indicate where text will go once it’s written. Since both of us had stomach problems, Lori and I would share antacids. You’d walk in the yearbook room or Lori’s office, and next to a pile of ZIP drives and undeveloped rolls of film would be a bottle of Mylanta Ultra Tabs–or two.

In addition to all the work, I’m assuming that Lori and I used to talk about our personal lives. We had to have done that. We ate so much Easy Mac together. What else would we have done? Her daughter Alexis was always around, even on the staff for a while. Lori would show us pictures of their family vacations–they loved Hawaii. It’s funny how the specific conversations have faded away, but the facts and feelings are there. I just remember the Mylanta Ultra Tabs, I remember her guidance, and I remember we used to laugh together.

In 2001 I graduated with an Associate Degree, but I kept taking classes that interested me and stayed on the yearbook staff. In 2002 Westark became University of Arkansas – Fort Smith. In 2003 the journalism department was terminated, and so was the yearbook program. And that was that–all good things must come to an end. When that final book was finished, Lori and the staff and I went out to eat, and they gave me two tickets to see the Broadway musical Swing!, which was about swing dancing and was touring in Fayetteville.

Over the years I saw Lori a few more times. I remember stopping by her office once and talking about how “kids these days” considered their cell phones to be extensions of themselves, which is why they couldn’t put them down during her lectures. Then one year Lori and another instructor wrote a book about funny things that had happened in their classes. So I bought a copy, and guess what? She included the fact that I used to say, “another opportunity to excel.” Of course, she changed “me” into a girl, another editor who used to work on staff, but still.

Four years ago, Lori died of pancreatic cancer. The last time I saw her, she was asleep in a hospital bed. Alexis spoke at the funeral. She said one of the things she remembered about her mom was that anytime someone rushed into her room or office with a crisis, Lori would throw her hands up as if she were being robbed and say, “NOT MY PROBLEM.” I thought, Oh my god. I’d forgotten. She DID do that.

I still can’t help but smile whenever I think about it.

A few days ago I posted that I was in Springfield, and Alexis reminded me that she lives there now and suggested that we have lunch. So for two hours this afternoon (that flew by), we caught up. Mostly we talked about our lives now, our jobs (she happens to have one), her dad, her five-year-old son. But of course we talked about yearbook, talked about Lori. I told Alexis that I thought Lori saw potential in me that I didn’t see in me, that she believed in me long before I knew how to believe in myself.

Alexis said, “She was good at that.”

The drive home today was overcast by a thick, gray sky and a steady drizzle. Just south of Fayetteville I stopped for gas and McDonald’s, switched from listening to a podcast to today’s hit music. Back on the road and driving through the mountains felt like a scene from a movie. The clouds hung low on the horizon just above eye level, kind of a mist, kind of a fog. They seemed to float along like a lost ship at sea–aimless.

None of us is ever really lost. At least we’re never really alone.

When I think about my years in college, when I think about Lori, there are times that it feels as if I too were aimless, a lost ship at sea. I look at pictures of myself in plaid pants with blonde tips and remember a time when I was so far in the closet, so stressed out about–something–that I was chucking tablets of cherry chalk down my throat by the dozen. Still, I know now that none of us is ever really lost. At least we’re never really alone. For always there is someone to help point your ship in the right direction, someone who sees you when you can’t see yourself. And maybe you’re not lucky enough to talk to that person one last time, but there will be days when their memory stands beside you like the tallest mountain and surrounds you like a mist, something you might pass through on your way from one world to another.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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It's enough to sit in, and sometimes drag ass through, the mystery.

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Matthew’s Box (Blog #117)

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At least once I’ve written about the time when I was a child and became so upset that I didn’t have enough space to organize my newly acquired birthday presents that I began to cry. I remember my mom sitting on the side of my bed. The room was dark. Maybe a nightlight was on. My mom left the room, came back with an empty Cool Whip container. She said, “Let’s put all your worries in here. You can get them out later.” So I took my hand and placed my invisible worries inside. Mom put the lid on the container, tucked it away in the bottom drawer of my dresser, and then tucked me away in bed.

Somehow, it helped.

Perhaps this is the first time I’m sharing this part of the story on the blog, but I’ve written about it elsewhere before and told some of my friends, so I feel like I’m repeating myself. Anyway, we’re talking about it now because this afternoon (at breakfast) I found out where the whole Cool Whip container thing started.

Sometime before I was born, my mom attended nursing school at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Nursing in Baltimore, Maryland. My aunt Terri attended there with her. One of their classmates and friends was a lady named Pat. I’m told that when I was six or seven I met Pat and her husband when my family went to visit them. I’m not sure that I remember, but the story goes that Pat said we could stay with them, but I said, “Thank you very much, but I’d like to stay at a hotel where I can use the vending machines.”

Not much has changed.

Since Mom’s recently joined Facebook, she and Pat have reconnected, and when I got back from Austin yesterday, I noticed a hand-written letter to Mom from Pat on the kitchen table. It was mixed in with some other cards addressed to Mom as well as a small bouquet of flowers (in a smiley-face vase) from the cancer support house. This morning I also noticed a small glass box, which at first glance looked looked like a jewelry box about the size of the palm of your hand, beveled on all edges, beautiful, with a silver clasp. Mom said the box came from Pat, that it was called a “Matthew’s Box,” that I could read about in an article Pat sent with her letter.

Matthew, Pat’s son, was born in 1976, four years before I was even thought about. At age four he was diagnosed with neuroblastoma, a typically terminal form of cancer that cut off the blood supply to his spinal cord and put him in a wheelchair. For over a year, Matthew was treated with chemotherapy, which left him weak, nauseated, and prone to infections like pneumonia. Two months before he turned six, an x-ray showed a new malignancy on his spine. Hope gave way to reality. At home and at treatment, Matthew held onto a toy he got when he was a baby, a stuffed dog (outfitted in engineer’s overalls) named Dooby.

One day while listening to records, Matthew began to sob. Hearing him from another room, Pat went to him. “Mommy,” he said, “if I die, will Dooby go with me?”

As time went on and Matthew struggled with the idea of dying, Pat said, “Matthew, think about taking all your concerns and troubles out of your mind and putting them in a box. Close the box and hand it over to God, and let him take care of it for you.” The day after that conversation, Matthew’s demeanor had changed. In Pat’s words, he was cheerful, chipper, glowing. When asked why he was so much happier, Matthew said, “Well, Mom, last night I changed my brain.”

Matthew died eleven months later. Even now, Pat keeps a glass box on a her desk. Into the box she slips little pieces of papers on which she’s written her worries and concerns. Whenever a friend has cancer, or maybe whenever they’re just having a hard time, Pat sends them a “Matthew’s Box” like the one she sent my mom.

Healing’s not an item on a to-do list.

Today I woke up tired and started the day by reading about Matthew and then crying into my grapefruit. I’ve been slightly on edge because I’m quitting coffee (for a while), and I’m overwhelmed that Mom is starting chemotherapy this Friday. (It’s the little things, it’s the big things.) Isn’t it all happening too fast? I spent the afternoon with my physical therapist, my massage therapist, and my chiropractor. My physical therapist actually described me as having, “almost perfect posture,” and my massage therapist got my shoulders to not round forward so much. And whereas all of that is exciting, it also feels like I have a long way to go. Tonight I’ve been thinking, What if I can never get my hips perfectly level or my ears above my shoulders?

What if my dreams never come true?

Tomorrow I see my therapist, and I honestly can’t wait. It’s been a couple of weeks, and–as always–I have a list of things I’d like to talk about, things that have bothered me but I haven’t been able to figure out on my own. This evening I realized that my therapy list is a lot like a “Matthew’s Box” or a Cool Whip container. It’s a place for me to put my own worries and concerns until I can get some help with them. My nature, of course, is to want a solution “right now,” to be able to check another item off my list. Thank God, I don’t have to worry about that anymore. But I realize that’s not how healing works. Healing’s not an item on a to-do list. No, healing is crying for breakfast, laughing for lunch, and eating peanut butter from a jar for dinner. It’s flowers on the table and asking a friend for help when you need it. It’s doing everything you know how to do while simultaneously acknowledging what’s not yours to control and admitting that often the only reliable thing you can change–as Matthew might say–is your brain.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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The deepest waters are the only ones capable of carrying you home.

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Feeling Vulnerable and Raw (Blog #116)

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Last night while I was working on the blog, Bonnie came back to the bungalow with doughnuts–Voodoo Doughnuts. I’d never had one before, but apparently they are a thing–creative packaging, filled with sugar, a great way to go up a pant size in less than twenty-four hours. But maybe the best part about them is that they are a little naughty–okay–a lot naughty. Their packaging is pink, and on the cover, along with a snake, is a magician with the words, “The magic is in the hole.” (Wow.) AND THEN it says, “Good things come in pink boxes.” (If you don’t get it, I’m not going to be the one to explain it to you. Especially you, Mom.)

So filthy–so funny–so tasty.

So that’s how today started, and I don’t mind saying that it’s gone downhill from there. I mean, Bonnie and I ate some delicious tacos before leaving Austin, and we listened to a lot of good music on the drive back to Arkansas today. But returning home after a great trip–to Austin of all places–can quite frankly blow. Let’s face it. Austin is where there’s live music, plenty of dancing, and amazing tacos. Van Buren, on the other hand, is where all my bills get delivered, the home of my bathroom scale, and the place where Mom has cancer. In short, there’s a lot of reality here.

Go away, reality, we don’t want your kind here.

I’m sure it doesn’t help that I’ve been extra tired this week and functioning on caffeine and sugar. Plus, I don’t mind saying that blogging every day about my emotions and internal life is–well–a real bitch at times. As if three years of therapy weren’t enough, now I’m personally journaling every day about what I think, feel, desire, and loathe, AND putting the highlight reel online for everyone to see. And I guess sometimes that leaves me feeling a bit vulnerable and raw, like what might happen if you had a scab that stretched from your face to your groin and intentionally ripped the whole thing off–you know–for fun. (Let’s start a blog and talk about our feelings!)

I don’t recommend it.

No, let’s eat doughnuts instead. And if you don’t think that will help, you can always take a pretzel and shove it in the heart of a one-eyed doughnut (that’s filled with red jelly) while pretending it’s everyone who’s ever 1) lied to you, 2) cheated on you, or 3) done you wrong.

When I got home tonight (about 1:30 in the morning), I went for a walk/jog to help clear my head, readjust. I’m not sure that it helped. But here’s something. My family has lived on this street for thirty years, and for as long as I can remember, situated between several houses and a local church, there’s been a patch of land that’s been a bit wild. From the road it’s looked like a bunch of overgrown trees, although sometimes it would get cut back, and maybe I remember seeing a cow or two back there. Whenever I would go for walks by there in the summers, there’d be a honeysuckle bush, and often I’d stop and smell it, even taste it.

Well, tonight as I walked by that plot of land, I thought something was different, but it took me a minute to figure it out. Y’all, the entire plot of land–maybe an acre or two of overgrown trees and honeysuckle–had been clearcut. (This is why I wouldn’t make a great detective.) It was just one big slab of dirt. Gone in the blink of an eye. Part of me was immediately sad–I’d gotten used to something being there, and now it was gone. Another part of me was delighted. Without the trees there, I could see all the stars shining through. There was all this–space. I wondered what would come along to fill it. There were so many–possibilities.

Sometimes I look at the way my life was before, and I miss it. On days like today when I’m wiped out and emotional, it’s easy to tell myself that life was better when I had a steady job, lived on my own, and every summer the honeysuckle bloomed in the same spot. Looking at my life now feels like looking at that empty plot of land–oh crap, where did everything go?  Again, it’s vulnerable and raw, in every way exposed. But at the same time, I can see stars I haven’t seen in years, and who knows who or what will come along, who knows what dreams may come.

There’s a poem by Robert Frost that says, “We dance round in a ring and suppose, but the Secret sits in the middle and knows.” What this means to me today is that it’s easy to look at the physical pieces of your life and think–that’s it–this blows. It’s easy to get caught up in what you can see, taste, and touch. But it’s the unseen dimension, I think, that gives the most shape to our lives. This is, of course, where divine wisdom lives, along with possibility. To be a little naughty, the magic is you know where. Additionally, it’s the holes or the spaces in our lives that give us room to breathe and room to rest in, room to contain both good and bad days, and–when the time is right–room for something else to come along.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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The journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. And whereas it's just a single step, it's a really important one.

"

An Extremely Neat Child (Blog #101)

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When I was four my family and I moved into an old three-story building in downtown Van Buren that we’d recently remodeled. There had been a lot of construction, and a lady who worked downtown paid me and my sister a penny for every nail we picked up off the ground. I guess it was my first job. I remember putting the money in some of those plastic easter eggs, putting the easter eggs in a drink carrier from McDonald’s, and then putting the drink carrier on a shelf in my closet. I can still see it–everything just so.

We’d lived in that house for about six weeks, and then one night while we were all gone, a semi-trailer truck lost control while coming down the big hill in front of our home that doubled as my dad’s drugstore. The fire started when the truck collided with a station wagon at the bottom of the hill, a station wagon with a family of seven inside. All seven people, along with the newly married couple in the semi-trailer truck, died. Three buildings, including ours, burned. The event made national news.

My memories surrounding the fire are pretty spotty. I remember that night seeing smoke in the sky from the front yard of my grandparents’ house. I remember sleeping on a pull-out couch that wasn’t ours. I remember getting hand-me-down stuffed animals. My aunt says I would arrange those stuffed animals according to height, that the year the fire happened was when I went from being a neat child to an extremely neat child.

At some point we settled into the house we’re in now, the house I really grew up in. My room was two doors down from where I am at the moment, and I can still picture the baby blue walls and the railroad-train wallpaper border that stayed the same until I became a teenager. Every now and then my dad would help me rearrange the furniture, but certain things never changed. Always the Legos sitting on top of the dresser were lined up parallel to the edges, the VHS tapes on the shelves in the closet were alphabetized, and the books on my desk were arranged according to height.

Everything just so.

I’m sure the fire was also when I started collecting basically anything that wasn’t worth a damn. That’s when I started hanging on. For a while I was into rabbit’s feet, which I hung individually by chains on a pegboard on the back of my closet door and arranged by color. And then there was Batman and then there was Coca-Cola (the new stuff, not the antiques). Every birthday or Christmas I’d take any newly acquired gifts and start searching for a place to put them. However, because things went into my room but rarely went out, finding empty shelf space became more and more of a challenge with each passing year.

Once after a birthday I remember lying in bed and my mom sitting on the edge. I’d gotten a bunch of new toys but didn’t know where to put them, and it was so overwhelming that I began to sob. Another time I dropped a paperback in the bathtub, and even though the book was okay, some of the pages got wrinkled. I recall being so upset that it was no longer perfect and how even after my mom bought me a new copy, I couldn’t get rid of the old one.

For nearly thirty years now, I’ve struggled with holding on and wanting everything to be perfect and just so. And whereas these things have been a challenge, they’ve also been my salvation, my way of bringing order to a chaotic world, a world where homes turn to smoke and fires take the lives of strangers just as easily as they take the lives of your stuffed animals. I’ve never been officially diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), but my psychologist friend Craig says a little OCD is functional. I know that my desire for order has come in handy in my life as a remodeler and interior decorator. Sometimes I like to think of myself as a household chiropractor, someone who can walk in, immediately spot any misaligned picture frames or candlesticks, and straighten everything up. Snap! There, that’s better.

Today after having lunch with my aunt Terri (the one who said the thing about the highly organized stuffed animals), I had coffee with my friend Kara, whom I’ve known since the fourth grade. Honestly, she’s one of my dearest friends, but she told me today that she’s learned things about me from the blog that she never knew before, like how much I’ve smoked over the years. (A number of other people have echoed this sentiment.) I guess we all do that to some extent, try to control the information that other people know about us, since no one likes to be judged. I know that for the longest time it was easy to stay in the closet because I’d only date people out of town. I could have a boyfriend on nights and weekends, but I never had to mix that part of my life with my family or my friends at the dance studio.

Kara accurately described this sort of behavior as compartmentalizing. Work goes over here. Friends from high school go over here. And let’s see–sex and cigarettes go waaaaaaaayy over there. I told Kara that I thought I’d made a lot of progress. I don’t compartmentalize nearly as much as I used to. (She agreed.) I guess it’s harder to do when you put a good majority of your thoughts, feelings, and secrets on the damn internet. There’s a certain amount of control that’s given up every time you get real with yourself, write it down, and hit the “Publish” button. In this sense, perhaps I’ve come a long way from that scared, little four-year old who lost his stuffed animals, the one who thought he needed to find a way to control the uncontrollable.

Still, this evening when I unpacked my bag from the weekend, I put my socks in one drawer, my shorts in another, and my t-shirts in the closet–according to color. I organized my calendar for the week. And then I put my change in an orange bowl, which–now that I think about it–looks not unlike an easter egg. All this I did in my sister’s old room, the room I now sleep in, the one with the bed where I lie awake and worry about things like whether or not I’ll ever move to Austin, how my body will recover from my recent car accident, and if I’ll ever be a husband. Of course, all of these thoughts are overwhelming, and sometimes I feel like that small child who doesn’t know where to put everything in his life. But then I sit down at my laptop and–word by word–place my entire chaotic world extremely neatly on a page, all the while wondering if this is simply another way to hold on, another way to get everything just so.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

"Beating yourself up is a far cry from self-respect."

Trying So Hard to Be Perfect (Blog #99)

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Yesterday I started physical therapy. Before I left the house in the rental car, I parked my wrecked car in the driveway and put the keys in the pocket of the door. I left the beat-up mats inside even though Dad said I could sell them at a garage sale. “Five dollars is five dollars,” he said. “It just sounds like another thing to do,” I answered. But I did try to take the stereo system out, even though I was unsuccessful and cracked the plastic frame. I thought, Oh shit! then remembered that the car was totaled and about to be someone else’s problem. Fuck it. (I think that’s a spiritual saying.)

Since the accident I’ve been even more aware of my poor posture, so when I got to therapy yesterday, instead of slouching like I usually do, I sat straight up in the chair. (It was extremely uncomfortable, and I guess it basically amounted to cleaning your house BEFORE the maid comes over.) Anyway, the meeting went well, and by that I mean he told me I have arthritis in my neck, so–since I’m falling apart–maybe I should get a wheelchair instead of a new car. Now I have stretches to do twice a day, three times if I want, but no more than that. (At this point in the conversation, he actually made a comment about overachieving–like it was a bad thing.)

When I got home last night, my wrecked car (Polly), the one I got from Grandma when she died, was gone. The tow company the insurance company hired had come to pick it up. On one hand, I’m glad to see it go. I didn’t really care for the color and I’m excited about the new-to-me car I’m planning to get next week. On the other hand, I’m sort of sad. I’ve driven Grandma’s cars since college, as the one I had before Polly–Wanda the Honda–came from her too. That’s a lot of memories and a lot of miles. So much of my life spent in that car, driving to work, listening to music, spilling coffee on the mats. I’ve never said this out loud, but I always thought it was one way Grandma and I could be close, since we never really were, unless close means buying your gay grandson a Ford F-150 wall clock for Christmas.

Uh, thanks, Grandma, but I’m not a lesbian.

You know how when a criminal escapes from prison, people describe them by their scars and tattoos? Well, as I think about Polly, that’s what I remember–all the imperfections. There were the coffee stains of course, a couple cigarette burns, maybe from me, maybe from Grandma. She smoked Virginia Slims. There was the spot in the bumper when I backed into a light pole after a church concert. Ugh. More coffee on the mats. The speakers–sucked.

Last year I rescued two puppies on the side of the road. I kept them for as long as I could, but they were too much, what with closing the studio, having the estate sale, thinking about moving. So I took them to the Humane Society. A couple months later I spent an hour looking at pictures on their Facebook page until I found out they had new homes. Even after we said goodbye, their paw prints remained on my car windows for over six months. I only recently washed them off.

Today, after breakfast and neck stretches, I went to the chiropractor for a massage, an adjustment, and some sort of TENS therapy for the spasm in my back. All of those treatments were done by three different people, so it felt like I was a soccer ball getting passed from one person to the next–down the hallway, past the refrigerator, into the back room with the cute guy who said, “I’m gonna need you to take off your shirt.” Score!

I noticed the chiropractor today was wearing a pair of black cowboy boots. I also noticed while lying on the table that there was a spot on the ceiling where the sheet rock needed to be patched and painted. I don’t know if it’s my personality or the fact that I’m a writer, but this is shit that actually takes up space in my brain, little details that most people would have long forgotten. But all day I’ve been wondering why that one spot hasn’t been fixed, since it’s pretty obvious from looking around the place that the owner is a perfectionist–everything in just the right place. (Also, someone at the office today said, “The owner’s a perfectionist.”) As for the boots, I’m still trying to figure out why they’re stuck in my head.

There’s gotta be a reason.

This evening I did my neck stretches again, and then I stretched on a foam roller and did chi kung. For the most part, all of these things–including the treatments at the chiropractor–feel good. But certain things feel like a fight, as if I’m wanting the muscles in my neck and back to move one way–flexible, fluid–and they’re saying, “Hell no, we won’t go.” So it occurred to me just how hard I’m working lately to get everything in just the right place. Yesterday the physical therapist said, “You look like you’re really working to sit up straight,” and I almost cried. You have no idea how hard I’m working. It’s like I have this idea about the perfect body in my head, and mine doesn’t measure up. My shoulders are rounded. My neck sticks out. I see total strangers with good posture, neck over shoulders, and think, They must be so happy.

As I think about those cowboy boots now, I know why I noticed them. They were brand new, not an imperfection about them. Anything but worn in, they looked–uncomfortable. Maybe that’s why he walked the way he did. (Do you think it would be weird if I asked him to take his boots off, turn around, and saunter down the hallway so I could compare?) Anyway, I used to have a pair of cowboy boots like that. But by the time I got rid of them, they were all scuffed up and full of stories–line dances I’d taught, parties I’d been to. I actually think I was wearing them one of the first times I held my nephew. If I wasn’t, I should have been.

I think it’s fascinating that it’s almost always the imperfections that stand out, the things we remember about our favorite pair of shoes, the cars we drive, the people we love. I used to date a guy who was a forceps baby. He was hot to begin with, but he had this scar to the side of his mouth where the doctors had pulled him out, and it was one of the sexiest things I’ve ever seen. I’m not discounting the perfect, of course. There’s nothing like the smell of a new car, nothing like the look of a dancer’s back.

Still, almost everyone in my family has rounded shoulders, a neck that sticks out ever so slightly. Put us all around a kitchen table, and we naturally lean into each other. Even now, sitting here all alone, I can feel what it’s like to hug each one of them, my arms slipped around their curvy backs, the way our shoulders connect in such a way that no one could slip between us if they tried. It’s in these moments that I forget my self-judgments and stop trying so hard to be perfect, that I remember what cars and boots and bodies are for. It’s in these moments that I can look at myself in the mirror and, seeing all my twists and turns, fall in love with every imperfect mile.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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Take your challenges and turn them into the source of your strengths.

"

The Way of the Dinosaurs (Blog #98)

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Last month while I was in Austin with my friend Bonnie, we (Bonnie) took a wrong turn one day and ended up driving through a local neighborhood. Well, Austin is weird, so someone had fastened a large toy dinosaur to a dead tree in front of their house. Bonnie thought it was so cool. She said, “When I move to Nashville, I want a dinosaur in my yard.” After that, we kept seeing dinosaurs wherever we went–in a modern furniture store, on a t-shirt. You know how it works when you get focused on something–it’s everywhere. But just like that, dinosaurs became a kind of mascot–for having a new life, for having something to look forward to.

At least that’s how I took it.

The night after we got back to Fort Smith, I finished the blog about five in the morning. Earlier that evening I’d been in Fayetteville, stopped at Walmart, gathered supplies. I couldn’t find a single large dinosaur, so I settled on a troupe–or is it a flock?–of small dinosaurs. Still under the cover of night, racing to beat the sunrise, I drove to Bonnie’s house, circled the block to see if there were any lights on inside, and then parked my car across the street and headed for a tree in her front yard, toy dinosaurs and a pack of push-pins in my hands. Fifteen minutes later, five different types of dinosaurs were lined up neatly on a slanted tree trunk, looking as if they were slowly marching their way to the top of the tree–or maybe to extinction.

I’ve been concerned that a horny squirrel might mistake the t-rex for a lover or that a thunderstorm would come along and–once again–wipe all the dinosaurs off the face of the planet, but each of them has held strong. Tonight I went to Bonnie’s to hang out with her family on their front porch, and all five of those guys (or gals–I didn’t check) were right where I left them.

Bonnie thinks they’re great, by the way.

This evening I’ve been thinking about all the things that irritate me, all the things that make me mad. It’s not that I’ve been obsessing about them, but you know how it goes–you can’t really help it, especially when you’re tired. So I’ve been remembering that rude lady I talked to at the insurance company yesterday, kind of having imaginary conversations where I stick up for myself, tell her to go jump off a bridge, or say she sounds just like a frustrated lesbian. (Sometimes I do this sort of daydreaming with people I deliberately don’t talk to anymore, people who didn’t respect my boundaries. My therapist says it happens because I never told those people what assholes I thought they were. She also says it’s too late to tell them now. That ship has sailed. Oh well.)

Caroline Myss says this is one of the ways we keep the past alive. We think about it and think about it. We build resentments. She says every day we wake up with a hundred energetic dollars, and most of us are near broke before we get out of bed because we’re worried about something that happened at work yesterday or angry about something a relative said six months ago. Before you know it, you don’t have any money left for spending right here, right now. This, I think, is the lesson Jesus was teaching when a disciple said he’d “be right there” but needed to bury his father first. “Let the dead bury the dead,” Jesus said. In other words, leave the past where it belongs–in the past.

Sometimes you have to go back before you can go forward.

I guess it’s ironic Bonnie and I chose the dinosaur as a mascot for the future–you know–because dinosaurs clearly don’t have one. Honestly, dinosaurs associate much better with the past (they’ve been dead a long time), and I think it’s interesting how hard our culture works at keeping them alive. We buy plastic toys of them, put them in a friend’s tree, make big productions about them. Of course, this is innocent enough. But I know I often do the same thing with my actual past–make a big production out of it. I think, “If I ever talk to that person again, I’m gonna really let ’em have it.” I tell my friends, “Can you believe that bitch?” But the truth is–like the dinosaurs–the past is over, even though I often refuse to let it go. Instead, I spend my precious energy trying to bring the dead back to life.

I had someone tell me once that therapy was concerned mostly with a person’s past. They may not have meant it like this, but I got the impression they thought therapy could be used as a way to stay stuck back there, maybe blame someone else for all your problems. (My friend Ray calls people that do this “whiners.”) Thankfully, that hasn’t been my experience with therapy. I remember that first day when my therapist asked me why I was there. I said, “Well, I’m dating a guy and it’s a mess. We met last year and moved in together a few months later.”

“That was a very lesbian thing to do,” she said.

And then for nearly an hour I marched out all the stuff I thought I’d never talk about–sort of a preview of coming attractions–basically job security for her–all the parts of my past that I’d swept under the rug for over thirty years. Since then, I guess you could say that we’ve been concerned with the past. But the point has never been to bring it back to life–because it’s never really been dead. The point has been to understand it, to have compassion for the guy who lived it, and in so doing–finally let it go the way of the dinosaurs.

In this sense, the dinosaur is the perfect mascot for the future because all too often it’s the past that holds us backs and weighs us down. What I mean is that sometimes you have to go back before you can go forward. So whether it’s something that happened yesterday or something that happened thirty years ago, you deal with it and you put it in perspective. And then–like a flock of small dinosaurs–you take the pieces of your past, put them neatly in a row, and march them toward extinction, leaving yourself free to have a new life, to have something to look forward to–right here, right now.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

"

Solid help and solid hope are quite the same thing.

"

From a Distance (Blog #93)

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This probably won’t come as a surprise, but I love Bette Midler. I guess there are certain requirements you have to meet if you want to be a card-carrying homosexual, and I’m proud to say I checked that one off at an early age. For this I blame my late Uncle Monty, who, although straight, also loved The Divine Miss M. (I suppose this is allowed). I remember sitting in his dentist’s chair as a child this one weekend when it was just the two of us at his office. Uncle Monty loved music, and that particular day he had Miss Otis Regrets on repeat. Just that one song, over and over for maybe an hour. It was the first time I’d heard anyone do that, play a song so many times that it becomes forever a part of you.

This morning, on the way to a funeral, I was in a car accident. It happened in Fort Smith where Free Ferry turns into 74th, this sort-of blind curve that leads into a steep hill. I made the curve, and as I came onto 74th, a rather sizable and stupid turtle was (slowly) crossing the road. So I swerved to the right side of my lane, and then back to the left, successfully dodging the son of a bitch. But the car in front of me had come to a dead halt–in the middle of the damn road!–I guess to play Jesus and save one of God’s more ignorant creatures. Slamming on my brakes, I stopped just in time to miss hitting them.

But the guy in the pickup truck behind me–didn’t.

It’s funny how moments like that one both slow down and speed up all at once, like a rubber band that’s pulled slowly backwards and then snaps forward–BAM!–and it’s over. A rubber band snapping–that’s what my neck felt like. And then all at once my coffee was splattered across my dash, my change scattered all over the floor, the baseball cap that was on my head–in the backseat.

For a few minutes, it felt like a dream. I’d only slept a few hours the night before–I’d just had the shit knocked out of me–everything was being processed about as slowing as that fucking turtle was crossing the road. I pulled my car over, so did the others. A lady yelled from the accident site, “Are you okay?”

“Uh, yeah,” I said.

An old man crawled out of the pickup truck. He had hearing aids. He looked confused. He said, “What happened?”

My guardian angel is obviously getting paid about as much as I am.

The lady and maybe her son were then next to us. Is everyone okay? And then they were gone, back to the accident site, kicking the remains of my back bumper into the grass. At the same time–I think–the tortoise rescue team either moved the turtle off the road or picked it up and put it in their car like a couple of cat burglars except–obviously–different. I don’t remember them saying anything during this whole process, and then they–what the actual hell?–got in their car and drove off. Assholes. (This is me learning to express myself.)

The old man gave me his business card. I gave him mine. His hands were shaking. He couldn’t find his insurance. And then he did. I walked down to the accident site and looked around. My magnetic hide-a-key had come off my bumper. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve used that thing. I lock my keys in my car constantly. I picked it up. Tearing a piece of styrofoam off my bumper, I put it in my front seat and called my insurance company. The man still seemed confused. I was on the phone with my agent, but he kept talking, saying–I think that’s the wrong insurance card–No, it’ll work–Do we need to call the police? No, we don’t. My agent says we don’t have to if we don’t want to–I don’t want to. I’m going to be late for the funeral.

The man drove off, and then I did. I didn’t even think to look at his truck, see how badly it was damaged. Then on the phone with his insurance company, I pulled into a hospital parking lot and filed a claim. The lady was super nice, but she actually said, “I hope the turtle is okay.” I thought about the fact that my neck had recently functioned like a slingshot, the fact that I could hear birds chirping through the open spaces in my trunk, the fact that my guardian angel is obviously getting paid about as much as I am lately.

I replied, “That turtle can die.”

Next I drove to the funeral, my bumper scrapping my tire the whole way, myself leaned back like a gangster because I couldn’t get my broken seat to return to its full and upright position. At the funeral parking lot, I got out and looked at the damage again. My bumper looks like a park bench, I thought. It’s so dented in, you could curl up and take a nap on that thing–like a cat, like a whole bunch of cats.

By this time I was thinking more clearly, so I called my parents. I’m okay, but I was in a wreck. I’ve gotta go, but don’t ever park your car in the middle of a street to save a reptile. Then I called my chiropractor and my massage therapist. Both of them said they could see me today, but it would mean leaving the funeral early. “Okay,” I said. “I’ll be there.”

For the next six hours, I was in and out of offices. The chiropractor, who was at least a seven and a half, said it was “nothing major.” I thought about saying, “Nothing major! Do you want to see my rear end?” but figured he wouldn’t know I was talking about my car. He said I had a slight compression in my neck joints, probably due to tight muscles. So he adjusted me, ran some ultrasound to reduce inflammation, and told me to come back next week. Then I went to my friend Justin’s house because I had time to kill and didn’t know what else to do.

Well, Justin, who knows a ton about cars and pretty much everything, is what we affectionately call a wet blanket. So he took one look at my car, pointed out that the entire frame was compromised and compared it to a can of soda pop that’s been stepped on by a circus performer. He said, “There’s no going back. It’s totaled. See how this door won’t open and that wheel is no longer perpendicular to the ground?”

“That’s a bad thing?” I said.

“Yeah. And you probably won’t get much money for it.”

(Pause.)

“Where did you say you keep your beer?”

My massage therapist, Ron, was a miracle. Is a miracle. (Go see him.) He worked on me for about thirty minutes, got my muscles to relax, and put bright blue Kinesio Tape on my neck, which is supposed to promote healing and blood flow to injured muscles. That’s me (with the tape) and Ron in the photo up top.

Next I went back to Justin’s, and we got lunch. Justin, who prefers the term “realist” to “pessimist,” said I should go to the doctor and request x-rays. That way, in the event that I’m really screwed up, there’s proof from the day of the accident. So Justin drove, and that’s what we did.

The receptionist at the doctor’s office had a basket of pens with a label on it that said, “Pens,” but when I first noticed it, I honestly thought it read, “Penis.” God knows what Freud would say about that, but I just figured it meant I’m ready to start dating again.

The doctor said there were no broken bones, nothing out of place. Phew! He also said it was a good idea that I came in early, that I got ahead of things, and he wrote a prescription for a muscle relaxer, an anti-inflammatory, and–Score!–a pain pill. So my last stop today was the pharmacy. Well, no, I take that back. I went to Starbucks for a White Chocolate Mocha and a chocolate chip cookie so I could go home, take drugs, get fat, smoke cigarettes, and generally feel sorry for myself. (My therapist has previously endorsed this sort of behavior on exceptionally difficult days. She calls it “comforting.”)

When I got home, I pulled my car, Polly, into my parents’ garage. I got the car from my Grandpa Pauline after she passed away, and it occurred to me this evening that I would probably never drive her again. At least in Polly–no more trips to see my Aunt Terri, Uncle Monty’s wife, in Tulsa–no more trips to see my therapist. In a strange way, it felt like a death. At the same time, I was glad I didn’t buy those new car mats I’ve been thinking about for over a year.

It’s funny how grief and joy get all mixed up. As I stood at the end of the garage and alternated oral fixations–coffee, cookie, cigarette–I put my earbuds in and searched for Bette Midler’s Experience the Divine: Greatest Hits, an album I’ve had on repeat off and on for over fifteen years. For probably twenty minutes I played From a Distance over and over. It’s about the idea that “from a distance,” everything looks beautiful, everything is just right, everything is–okay. It says, “God is watching us–from a distance.”

I thought about the fact that some days God feels so far away. Some days life is already a lot to handle, more questions than answers really. And then a couple of turtle-lovers and a guy who’s not paying attention come along and fuck things up even more than they already are. It’s like everything is falling apart. But then again, in my case, I got excellent, immediate care. What’s more, insurance paid for everything. So far, I haven’t spent a dime. So in that sense, it felt like everything was coming together, that God was anything but far away.

In one of the most profound books I’ve read about healing trauma, I learned that the physical body often releases trauma through crying and even shaking, as might be evidenced–respectively–by a small child, or a duck that ruffles its feathers after a fight. Before I knew this, I didn’t trust my body to cry, to curl up in a ball if it wanted to. Most of today, I’ve been in “I can handle this” mode. I haven’t been angry, upset, sad, or worried. But this evening while listening to From a Distance, all the emotions hit me, just a hard as that fucking truck did. So when I started to cry, I didn’t push back the tears. I welcomed them. And when my body started shaking, I slumped down into a ball, leaned against the side of the house, and tried to make room within me for all of life’s mysteries. I can only imagine that from a distance, it was quite a beautiful thing to see.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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There’s nothing wrong with taking a damn nap.

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